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Madero fire, April 2017 Madero

Out · last detection 3 May 2017, 19:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 April 2017 in Madero, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 100th largest in Michoacan de Ocampo since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 351 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
1,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
30 Apr 2017 – 3 May 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Apr
2017
Heat detections
51
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
402MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 May 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Apr3 May

How it evolved, day by day

30123

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 5 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Madero where it started
    1,554 ha reached on 30 Apr
    1.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
30 Apr 31.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 May 31.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 May 31.4 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 May 29.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 May after 32.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 May after 28.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 3.2 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 23 Apr 2017
After · 10 May 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 51Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Madero fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 April 2017 and 3 May 2017: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,546 hectares (15.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madero (1,554 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mexico (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.